Don’t stop engaging

A skill I’ve acquired over the years is that if I want to get through to someone and engage them, I keep trying.

I say it’s a skill. Really, the skill is that I turn off my sense of rejection and turn on different senses:

1. What I have to offer is great

I’m a very sensitive person. I’m terrible at promotion because I’m so wary of doing it with something of poor quality. So on the occasions when I DO have something to offer, I’ve learned to trust that it’s not going to be junk.

2. Enthusiasm wins out over the long term

If someone can remain enthusiastic about offering something to you over weeks, months, years, it must be good. So I maintain this enthusiastic posture.

3. Most people don’t reply because their invite gets lost in the busyness of life

I fundamentally believe that most people don’t reply to invitations to engage because the invitation gets lost somewhere — in their junk, in their overflowing inbox, among all the other things vying for their attention.

People forget. It’s normal. And the majority of my job is to remind them.